death panels
I am finally scared of a White House administration. President Obama’s desired health care reform intends that a federal board (similar to the British model) – as in the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation in a current Democratic bill – decides whether your quality of life, regardless of your political party, merits government-controlled funds to keep you alive.
To sidestep the merits of the proposed death panels for a moment, isn’t there just a small disconnect in this reasoning? On the one hand, if there are these federal boards determining if the government will pay for such and such care at the end of someone’s life that’s one thing. If government were not involved in health care at all, however, then the government would not have these boards, but also the people who needed the care would still not have that government money – right? This is not to argue for or against anything. It’s just to say that it’s odd to both oppose government spending on health care but also oppose government “rationing” which is at least ostensibly one way for the government to spend less on health care. It just doesn’t quite add up.
And either way this does not amount to forced euthanasia.
But this happens whenever the government gets involved in any industry. Think in terms of education. People generally agree that “we” should pay to teach people to read and write and understand basic science, etc. But then we have kids who have special needs, and cost upwards of $100,000 a year to educate. Which is why the average spending per students if often so high. Think about it. If you were to REALLY address many of our educational issues, you would have to send a lot of kids home with a full time nanny and a body guard to protect them from abuse. But… that costs. And so do all kinds of ACTUAL special ed issues.
So you know what we do? We basically pay for them all. Because no politician is going to be seen turning Junior away from the classroom. Especially when junior is in a wheelchair and had debilitating metal issues.
So we pay for it. We pay billions. And still, the schools are a disaster.
In a sense, the big fear is not that government health bureaucrats will have death panels. The big fear is that they won’t. And we will pay for everything for everybody.Report
Medicare costs too much according to conservatives. But trying to cut medicare spending is, apparently, inhumane.
If I say that poor people shouldn’t have their medical procedures paid for by the govt, that’s good. If I say old people shouldn’t have some certain procedure paid for the government, that’s bad. If I say that someone should study the effectiveness of research and that medicare payments should be based on those findings, that is also bad.
It all leaves me terribly confusedReport
Keep in mind that Nat Hentoff is exceptionally principled when it comes to being pro-life. What he sees here is a camel’s nose.
Now, of course, we all know that something analagous to a Roe v. Wade for euthania would never and could never turn into something analagous to “abortion on demand”. That would be absurd.
But keep in mind that such are his principles.
Full Disclosure: I think Nat Hentoff is the bomb.Report
Yeah, I dig Hentoff also. I just think this is a pretty sadly overblown piece – and he’s usually very on the ball.Report
What’s odd (and I think you’ve pointed this out) is to pretend that this is something that Obama came up with as part of his plan (well, okay it is — he does mean to get savings out of Medicare), but not that costs in mEdicare wouldn’t have to be dealt with sooner than later in any case. Grandma, we’re comin’ after you one way or t’other, doesn’t matter who ya vote for!Report